- If I did what most people did,
I wouldn't have had the money,
because I didn't make that much money,
to invest in Twitter and Facebook.
I wouldn't have had it.
I would have had 25 pairs of Nikes and a Mercedes.
(lighthearted guitar music)
- Fantastic. It's so nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you. Hello. How are you?
- Hi, I'm fine. - She's my wife, Aicha.
- Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you, too.
- Good. How's your day?
- It's good. - Good.
- Twelve o'clock, midnight, I believe I messaged, mailed you
on all the new ideas that I've got
And I thought this is the best time to meet you,
and discuss the challenges, which I feel gets
your peace of mind in terms of
how you see sales.
I know by how your sales guy, right?
And there is so much going on in the market right now.
And to be relevant in the next five years,
and I'm selling technology, which basically means that
it's gonna be an interesting journey for me.
Especially with the AI coming into the picture
and machine learning and everything.
- Yes.
- So, I don't know--
- Well first off, let's start backwards.
The machine learning and AI thing's very important
because anytime there's new technologies
that people think are going to replace humans,
it always takes so much longer than people think.
Like the thought that
machines are gonna replace sales people
in the next decade,
is virtually impossible.
- Certainly.
- Do you know how much has to happen
for that to be a reality?
Including, the social aspects,
like human,
where technologists get confused
is the technology is there, but the adoption isn't.
- Sure.
- Because the adoption's emotional.
- Right.
- Taking the risk to fire half your sales staff
to let machines
Here's what doesn't work.
Being a salesperson who spends their entire day
cold-emailing people on LinkedIn
is probably a vulnerable skill.
- Too easy.
- Because a machine can do that.
- Absolutely.
- Going and golfing, or having a glass of wine
or building relationships as a salesperson
is not something a machine's replacing anytime,
and that is where most of the magic is in sales.
Having good product, knowing your product,
and then building an actual relationship
where people trade on humanity, not on data.
So I think sales is going to be
a very, very down the long line thing
that's disrupted by technology itself.
Now selling technology's interesting
because sometimes your product becomes irrelevant,
and you're selling something you don't believe in.
- True.
- That, to me, is the biggest fear.
That's why, if you've noticed,
because it sounds like you're into my content,
I've been spending more time talking about
selling stuff you believe in. - True.
- I have sales people selling me stuff,
I ask one question, and they break.
And they break because they already know they're in trouble
because they think I'm smart, or know I'm smart.
And two, they get exposed for selling
something they don't believe in.
- True.
- But they've been doing it for nine years,
and they know the product, but the market moved.
I don't sell social media at VaynerMedia.
I sell attention.
- So I'm not pushing Twitter and Facebook,
I'm pushing whatever I believe has the attention
at an under-priced level.
So, for me, it's always gonna be easy to sell VaynerMedia
because I'm not tied down to anything.
And so that's where it gets tough.
I have the luxury of driving the company
toward products and features and things to sell
that are relevant.
When you work somewhere,
if you're company doesn't do that, you're stuck.
If you're selling desktop computers,
if you're competing with Amazon Cloud,
if there's been a SAS product that's been released,
and you're building enterprise websites,
and you're competing against Squarespace
or WordPress or Shopify, or Magento, that's tough.
- True.
- So I think the biggest thing that I would say is
make sure you're never in a position
where you're not selling something you believe in.
That's what's tough. - Right.
- And so what that requires is having your feet
in the business that you do but your head in...
So I think of it as feet, head, and heart.
My head is always looking at where I'm going,
my feet are always where I have to be,
and I try to hope that I can have my heart
match with my head.
- Because if you're heart and head are matched,
you have a big chance of winning.
If you love it, and you know it's smart--
- Automatically you're passionate about what you're selling.
- Hundred percent.
All of a sudden, when you're heart is leading your head
instead of your head to your heart,
you are putting your, you know..
This is why I always try to get people to change jobs.
Because I tell them, "Start with your heart,
"take a little less money"
But if you love East sports, if you love video games,
well that's heart. - Right.
- If you use your head, you're like,
"East sports is growing." - Right.
- That's great.
If your heart is in typewriting,
your head is gonna say, "No, that's not
"where the world's going., Now you have to make a decision.
- True.
- Right? But I'm much happier with the person
that goes with their heart and does typewriting
and lives a more humble life,
than what I think most people do,
which is they go with their heart, head,
which is a lot of times is attached to their pocket.
But their heart's not in it.
- Sure.
- And then they live that life that so many people live
that is the worst life, which is you're stuck
paying your mortgage and your bills
and taking care of your family, but you're miserable
40 to 70 hours a week, minimally.
And then in your head, you're miserable 144 hours a week.
- True. Can I-- - Yes.
- I was watching on a few videos and,
I think I saw you in Mumbai.
- Yes.
- Nine years back?
And I was just seeing the number of views on that.
There were around 700 views.
At that time, probably it was around 200 views.
Probably 500 views added in the last three, four years.
- Makes sense.
- It must have been a difficult journey for you.
- Not really because I love the journey
more than the results.
My friend, I like it better when I have 200 views.
I don't like what's happening now.
- That's the fundamental difference.
You want to know what the difference is?
That question and that answer.
My favorite times is when nobody knows who I am
and when I'm struggling because I love that part.
- True.
- If you notice,
when I started winning in the wine business,
I went into this business.
My friend, listen, I think I'm about 36 months away
from doing something drastic
and doing something completely different
that people are gonna tell me...
The problem is this chapter elevated me so much
that I'm worried that the next thing, I'm already gonna...
People are just gonna say, "He's gonna win."
I prefer the negative.
I might move to Mumbai where nobody knows me
just to have that feeling.
It wasn't difficult, it wasn't difficult at all.
And that's what I'm trying to push people for.
When you love it, when it's your heart driving you,
it's the most fun.
It's liberating.
- True.
- Like as long as you're paying for your family's existence,
and to me, that could be as simple as roof and food,
people get too fancy.
They buy an expensive car and a second home
and now they're stuck because they have a mortgage
and they have to pay for those things.
No, I'm glad you asked that question next
because it allowed me to really make you understand.
- Right.
- The only part I like is the struggle.
I don't like the admiration.
I mean, look, this feels incredible for people
to feel like you're helping them,
but the reason I want admiration and fame
is because I think I can help.
It's a sense of responsibility, it is not a...
To me, it is... I'm not doing what I'm doing right now
out of the narcissistic vanity reasons.
I'm doing it out of a sense of responsibility,
which is I have an ability to connect with people,
and if they connect with me,
I'm gonna teach them very good values.
And for me, especially, it skews young male,
and young males can go down a very bad path very quickly.
And so if I can get them, I still have that star power
to get them attracted and they like it,
and it's macho and it's alpha,
but underneath my facade is a purity
that most of my competitors don't play with.
And I feel like that is my greatest impact on society.
Like if I can do this for the next 40-50 years,
if I can impact a generation of young men
to do good things, I could have a real impact.
- So true.
I'm leaving on 26th.
I wish I could get a chance to visit the Synergy Global.
- Next weekend. It's a big event.
- Big event.
- Big games, yeah.
- So long back my brother gifted me this book
for disciplines of execution.
I'm big on execution.
I'm very bad at strategy.
That's unfamiliar.
What I feel is
I can work towards things, and that the reason--
- By the way, I apologize to cut you off.
- Sure.
- Self-awareness is the ultimate strategy.
It's funny to hear you say, "I'm bad at strategy,"
and I'm bad at plenty of things.
You're bad at micro-strategy.
The fact that you even know that
means that you're winning the most important
strategy game there is.
Strategy is an insight,
if we don't have insights on ourself and who we are,
we can't put ourselves in a position to succeed.
So you might be bad at some micro-strategy,
but the fact that you even understand that
means that you're winning the macro-strategy game.
And that's the unlocks.
- I'm taking up an interesting assignment now,
it's gonna be in Australia,
so it's a different world altogether for me for my wife.
- You guys are gonna move? - Yep!
- Congratulations!
- Yeah, so that's gonna be--
- What city? - I'm sorry?
- What city? - Sydney.
- Sydney. You've been before?
- No
- It's amazing, it's an amazing city.
How long you gonna be there?
- I don't know, probably three, four years.
- You excited or you gonna miss home?
- Yeah, I'm excited - Good. Good. Awesome.
I'm gonna be in Sydney in a week or two.
- Oh, nice. - Yep.
- So I have to be there--
- So what are you gonna sell?
- I'm responsible for Orko Technologies,
database, software-- - Yep, I know it.
- Orko itself is transforming right now, it's huge company,
and they now entered advertisement,
now they have a social presence themselves.
So for me it's gonna be very interesting
because we are getting into a different market altogether--
- You are going down.
- We were always working with the Fortune 500 companies,
and now we are talking to startups, getting them on board,
and having them understand all the technology.
And all this is exciting,
but one question which I had in my mind,
which I really wanted to ask you is,
see, I'm very high on ambition--
- Okay, how is your patience?
- I'm patient--
- That's good, how old are you?
- I'm 29-- - Baby.
- I'm turning 30 in December - Okay.
- But what I feel is that,
at the same time I wanna be switched with myself, in 40s.
I don't know why do I have this fantasy
of not working full time job, or a business--
- It's great.
You guys gonna start, you have a family
or you gonna start a family?
- We wanna start a family.
- I mean, maybe that's why, there's a million reasons why.
Why not?
So what's the question?
- I don't know if I should go all into my ambitions--
- Of course you should,
but it doesn't mean you need to quit your job.
All into your ambitions may look like this,
I'm gonna work really great at Orko for the next 10 years,
and you gonna look at your wife and say,
"Okay, and we are gonna be smart,
"and we are gonna save even more than normal,
"we are gonna live even more humbly,
"because what do we need?"
and that's gonna allow us to save 5,000 10,000 50,000.
I don't know your business,
I don't need to know your business,
but if you save even $10,000 for over 10 years
that you would've just spent on dumb shit,
that's a $100,000.
That's enough to start a small business.
People don't get caught up in the numbers,
get caught up in the game.
You know, just back to that last answer I gave you,
if your ambition is to work for yourself,
there is a very big difference between working for yourself
and working for yourself and making $40 million a year.
- Right
- You can work for yourself, they can work for themselves,
at a very low number.
You could.
It's keeping things in budget.
You need to decide what you guys need.
- True
Now listen, I would argue a lot of families
need two very nice vacations, I understand that.
Somebody may need a fancy car because they are insecure
and that makes them feel good, I'm okay with anything.
I just think you don't need everything you think you need.
To me it's now about being, making $400,000 a year
and living in a studio like you are poor.
But it is looking at what, $220,000 a year,
and making salary like that, and living like it's 150.
Or making 87 and living like it's 62.
Do you know what most people do?
They make a 115 and live like it's 200,
and then debt them whole way through.
For what?
To look cool with everybody else?
- You know what's happening inside?
- And that's not even factoring in if economy gets bad.
Do you know what happens to people
when they make $125,000 a year and live like it's $200,000
when the economy goes bad?
- It's truly bad.
- Yeah, we've been living a very long time now
and you guys haven't even felt the bad economy.
Globally.
- 2008
- Right, you were a baby.
- I started working at 18 - Right
- Which is very rare in India.
- So, I don't know,
and just even looking at your body language like,
I just don't don't think you need anything.
I wish I documented my 20s and 30s,
I was 36 years old, renting,
renting a two bedroom apartment.
- At 36? - At 36.
- And I believe that was--
- If I did what most people did, I wouldn't have the money,
because I didn't make that much money,
to invest in Twitter and Facebook, I wouldn't have had it.
- I would've had 25 pairs of Nikes and a Mercedes.
- And that changed your life as well.
- And that changed my life at some level,
but really never, it didn't.
You know what's funny, if I'm being serious,
it didn't change my life,
I'm still sitting with all the equity.
I mean I sold Twitter, but..
I gotta go I know, I gotta catch a flight,
I gotta go to Singapore,
but I wanted to sneak in this meeting.
- Thank you so much--
- It's such a pleasure,
I hope you got some value out of it.
- Oh I did, definitely.
- Good, awesome!
- I really really really really really really
hope you listen to every work of that meeting.
I could tell by Derox's reaction
there was some good stuff going on,
so advice I'm giving this lovely couple
is probably the advice that 95% of you needed,
so I hope you enjoy it.
- Thank you so much. - Bye guys.
(dramatic instrumental music)
- Quick words of wisdom, self-awareness,
empathy, gratitude, these very tried and true attributes
that are absolutely the drive of success
in today's environment, straight up.
- Alright vlog, heading to Hong Kong right now,
then connecting going to Singapore.
Just did a live stream
cut some from that, just super excited, lots of good stuff.
VaynerMedia, just rolling last month,
Vayner staff selling content,
we are still not there, but we will get there.
We will get there.
See ya.
(upbeat music)
- I gotta bounce.
I love you guys, I hope you have the best day
of your fucking life.